The last week in Bonn came faster than I ever anticipated.
Though we didn’t stay in Bonn the entire 6 weeks, the place quickly became to
feel like home. Monday after class we went to an organ (the instrument) factory
located in Bonn. The organ factory is a family business started by Johannes
Klais in 1882. Our tour guide was
awesome and I really enjoyed the visit more than I thought I would. I don’t
think organs are nearly as common in the states, and since I go to a
contemporary worship service at church, I never grew up listening to the organ.
Because of that, I didn’t have any prior knowledge to everything that must go
into making the organ and actually playing the organ. Tuesday we had lecture at
AIB and then I went home and took a solid nap. Wednesday we had our Rhine
cruise excursion. We met in the morning and took a bus to Bingen and toured the
museum there dedicated to Hildegard, who was pretty much a remarkable woman of
her time who was a nun and wrote a lot of texts, including medical texts. We
had a group lunch and ate meats and bread with different spreads. It was a very
different meal than usual, but it was overall really good. Of course, I grabbed
gelato afterwards. We then took the Rhine cruise for about an hour. The weather
was beautiful, especially in the shade. We were able to see little cute towns
on the sides of the Rhine, as well as old castles hidden up in the beautiful
green hills. The ride was about an hour and a half or so, and when we got off
we went to the Rheinfels Castle. We had a guided tour through the ruin, and it
was much bigger than I expected. In some areas we had to duck and be very
careful not to hit our heads in the foxholes. Though I sometimes worry when in
tight spaces, it was fine and really neat. At the end of the tour we were able
to go to the top of a tower and see over the Rhine and it was really pretty. I
tried taking it in as much as I could because I knew it would be the last time
I got to overlook the Rhine on this trip. After the tour we had some potato
soup as a dinner snack and it was really good! It wasn’t like “American” potato
soup, in the sense there wasn’t any potato chunks, bacon, and really cheesy,
but it was good regardless. We then took our bus back to Bonn for the evening.
I was drained that night, and went straight to bed since I had an early morning
the next day.
Thursday morning we met at 6:30AM at the central station to go to
the university teaching hospital to observe surgeries. I was so stoked! I’ve
shadowed physicians, and I have seen videos of surgeries before, but it was my
first time actually seeing a surgery in person. Once we got to the hospital and
changed into scrubs and crocs, I felt like I really fit the part for the day.
We went down the hall to get our assignments for the day. I was one of the last
to be assigned a room, and they never told me what specialty I was placed with.
I walked into the OR and did not receive an introduction from anyone in there,
nor did they ask me anything, so I just stood to the side and made sure not to
get in the way. They quickly brought the patient into the room and everyone was
giving orders in German. The patient was a male, probably 60-70yo and was lying
on the table completely nude. For the next few minutes as they finished
prepping the patient, I tried figuring out what specialty I was placed with and
what type of surgery I was going to be observing. Once they started covering
the patient, one leg was left uncovered and they placed X-rays on the board. I
was able to figure out that the patient had previously had a hip replacement
and it was now dislocated. I scored orthopedics and I was excited! In high
school I was really interested in sports medicine, took sports med classes, and
was an athletic trainer. For quite some time I wanted to be an orthopedic
surgeon, and never once was I turned away from the specialty because I am a
woman. I’m not opposed to the speciality (even after my experience in the OR
that day), but I am keeping options open because well, duh, I haven’t been to
medical school and haven’t been exposed to all of my options yet. Anyways, back
to the surgery! So someone in the OR finally told me that they were going to
try to relocate his hip without opening him up. The head surgeon came in, and with
the help of a few others, he did a couple of maneuvers and popped it back into place. With a
ultrasound camera he was able to check the hip to make sure it was in place and
wouldn’t pop right back out. 5 minutes in and out and he was done! The longest
part then was just waiting for the muscle relaxers to wear off before taking
him off the gas because without waiting the patient wouldn’t be able to breath
on his own. After an hour and a half of waiting for him to leave and the next
patient to be prepped, the next surgery went underway. The next patient was a
75yo female who previously had a knee replacement ten years ago that needed to
be replaced again due to being worn down and it was too lose for her now. From
cutting her knee open and pulling out the old knee replacement, there were only
two surgeons and I was able to stand right by the table. After they did a few
different things they would pause to translate and tell me what they did and I
was able to ask any questions. Since the only anatomy I have taken thus far has
been a unit from my sports medicine class in high school, I was really familiar
with the knee anatomy and so I was glad that was what I was able to observe
because I had a decent understanding of all I was seeing. Once the old
replacement was taken out, the lead surgeon and a man who must have been in
residency came in to do the rest. The lead was teaching the resident what to
do, showing him how, and then handed it over to the resident to do. At this
point I had to step further back, but I still had a good view of what was happening.
I appreciated the experience to see the lead surgeon teaching the resident. At
this point they were removing more of the femur and pulling out parts from
within the tibia (they literally removed a cyst the size of a golf ball that
was formed from the material of the old knee). Seeing all of the tools they
used to shape and file down the bones was crazy. They created stints to make
sure the new knee would fit the patient just right. They would place the stints
in and move the knee in all sorts of directions to reassure it was best. They
then popped the new ones in and triple checked everything with the ultra sound
camera. Though patients are really sore after these types of surgeries, it is
really impressive they aren’t in worse conditions because it takes an intense
amount of force to perform these types of operations. It’s incredible what our
bodies are capable of handling. Once the new pieces were inserted, it was
already three and a half hours and I was dying to get food since it was about
1:30, and since all that was left was to close the knee up, I headed out.
Observing both of these surgeries was such an awesome experience, and I really
wished we had gone more than one day. I left the hospital, grabbed some pizza,
and headed home and napped.
Friday we had class as usual, but then we went to
the Cologne zoo. The only other zoo that I have been to is the Houston Zoo, and
so I don’t really know how to compare the two. I personally thought that
Houston has more types of animals, but not high numbers of each animal, whereas
Cologne has a smaller variety of animals but in higher quantity. I don’t really
know how accurate that is since we didn’t look at everything in the Cologne
zoo, but that was my first impression. Of course, and I am sure everyone else agrees,
the best part of the tour was going “behind the scenes” of the elephant house
and LITERALLY FEEDING AN ELEPHANT OMG. It was probably one of the most exciting
things about the trip. From the zoo I grabbed some gelato (gelato runs are
essential, I think I’m about to take one before I finish this blog) and then
headed home for the night.
The last weekend I decided to stay in Bonn and do
last minute things and enjoy the area one last time. Saturday I met Anne Marie
and headed to the Birkenstock outlet. It took about 35 mintues by tram, and
then a 20 minute walk to get to the store. I was overwhelmed by the variety and
how many people were in the store. We spent probably almost an hour trying to
figure out what sizes we wanted, which color, and of course pick some up for
people at home. Who can pass on Birkenstocks that cost only 25 euros?! As we
were leaving the store we ran into Jessica who was walking in by herself, so we
stayed with her until she finished what she wanted and then we all decided to
grab some lunch. After lunch we went back to Bonn. We went to a couple of
different stores like the Haribo store, and a few other souvenir shops. Before we went back home we picked out a card
and flowers for our host homes to say thank you for opening up their homes. My
host mom really loved hers! Sunday was a lazy day where I just slept, relaxed,
did laundry, and began to pack. Monday was weird. Last real day in Bonn. Last
day at AIB. Last lectures. Last dinner with host mom. It still hasn’t hit me
that I may not ever be back in Bonn, the place that has felt like home for the
last five weeks. Tuesday morning Jessica and I left early, and giving our host
mom a big hug, thanking her so much for her hospitality, and her wishing us to
come back and visit us was so sweet and a little sad. The bus ride to central
station I was just thinking how weird it will be to never get on route 604
again and figuring out public transportation. I’ll write about the Berlin
adventures after the week is over.
Emily
(Credit to Kalea Moch for the blog post title because I'm unoriginal)
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